The Transit Lounge of Barzakh - The Bardo State.

 

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Title: The Transit Lounge of Barzakh
Posted on cheeseburgerbuddha.blogspot.com

There are moments when I sit in silence and ask:
Where do we go when we die — really?
Not the grave, not the pyre, not the ashes in the wind.
But the soul — where does it rest?
Where does it wait?

In Islamic tradition, we call it Barzakh —
a veil, a barrier,
a realm between the world of the living
and the Day of Judgment.

It is not Heaven,
not Hell.
It is the in-between.

And I see it now —
like a transit lounge in a vast, eternal airport.
You’ve left your departure gate behind.
Your body lies on the tarmac.
You’re waiting for your connecting flight.
And you’re not quite sure if — or when —
you’re going home.

You sit there with the only luggage you’ve ever really packed:
your deeds,
your intentions,
your prayers,
your silences,
your regrets,
your love.

Some wait in dread.
Others in peace.
Some see glimpses of light,
some hear echoes of their past life fading like distant boarding calls.

Is Barzakh a limbo?
Yes — but not a meaningless one.
It is a sacred pause,
a mirror held up to the soul.

In some Hadith, the soul hears the footsteps of the mourners walking away from the grave.
In others, the soul is questioned by angels — not with harshness, but with truth.
In Sufi thought, Barzakh isn’t just a realm after death —
it’s the veil between heart and spirit,
the twilight between self and truth.
It’s a place of reckoning,
and perhaps — a place of remembering.

Does the soul witness its body decay?

Maybe not with eyes.
But with awareness.
With the deep knowing that all things must pass —
even this form you once clung to like a home.
You may see it shed,
like old skin falling away in the night.

In Buddhism, the Tibetan Bardo carries a similar whisper —
a state of transit where the soul watches, listens,
and if mindful, may awaken before it is too late.
Not so different, really.
Truth wears many faces,
but the silence between lives is the same.

Barzakh is not the punishment —
it is the mirror.
A place of waiting,
but also of witnessing.

And so we wait —
in the lounge beyond death,
watching the screen for our name,
hoping the flight will be called,
praying we are cleared to board.

Somewhere, a gate opens.

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